On Friday July 12th, we celebrate Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.
Everybody in the Catholic Church knows of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the youngest Doctor of the Church who died at age 24 in a Carmel in Lisieux, France. But very few know about her parents, Louis and Zélie.
Louis and Zélie were canonized on October 18th, 2015, by Pope Francis on Mission Sunday, in honor of St Thérèse, their daughter, Patroness of Missionaries.
They are celebrated together on their wedding anniversary: July 12th.
Their canonization is the very first joint canonization of a married couple.

Women willing to give up their career (be it temporarily) to stay home for their children should be prepared to have this choice criticized as a waste of talent, a suppression of women, an impediment to self-realization, or as the confirmation of patriarchal structures. This is illuminating for the philosophy of modern culture. It uncovers how society thinks about freedom and the important things in life: freedom is the state of not being constrained by any external factors and what really matters in life is making money, careering and accumulating goods.

Once again, Christianity offers a great alternative view, turning the worldly logic upside down. Here are 8 arguments in favour of staying at home.

My wife and I have never been big fans of deep or controversial movies. The reason being that if we want to go to a movie, we want to go for the experience of escaping into an adventure or travelling to a distant alien planet or rooting for the underdog who travels into hostile territory to destroy a ring that nobody else has the courage or will to do. Recently, we took a different turn and decided to view the movie Unplanned.

Every night at the ending of bedtime prayers with my 9 year old son, we pray the Eternal Rest for the faithful departed, especially our loved ones and I encourage him always to pray for the most forgotten Holy Souls in Purgatory because in return their prayers for us are very powerful and beautiful because they have the sure and certain hope that they will enjoy the Beatific Vision and earnestly desire us to follow them to that same Glory.

When my aunt asked me last fall why we chose to homeschool, I gave her the lamest answer ever: “The public schools here aren’t great and private school is too expensive.” In reality, those were contributing factors to our decision to homeschool, but they were not the driving reasons.

I was at a surprise birthday party last week for a friend. Children were welcome so we brought 4 of our 6 kids. A woman there saw me smiling and she commented, "How can you still be smiling when you have so many kids?!" Without even thinking, I replied, "Its because I have so many kids that I'm smiling!"

I was in 8th grade when I received the Sacrament of Confirmation. During the preparation process you are supposed to choose a patron saint, and I was having trouble picking one. I grew up reading about the saints but no particular one was really sticking out to me. If it were now, I probably would have picked St. Paul or St. Philip Neri, or maybe even Zelie Martin. But at the time, I chose St. Bridget of Sweden.

Over the last few weeks there have been heart wrenching accounts relating to the tragic events surrounding the case of Alfie Evans the little boy whose plight confronted and in many respects confounded the various "orthodoxies" of the Establishment; mainly the fundamental right to life and the inalienable rights of parents. I am not going to comment on the case as others like Joe Shaw and Fr Dwight Longenecker have done that for us.

“Are we there yet?” Anyone who’s ever traveled anywhere with children knows firsthand how impatient they become on the journey, and the farther the journey the harder the wait for the little ones. This is especially true when they have an idea of where they’re headed. Tell the kids they're going to the dentist and they never ask when they’ll get there, but tell them you’re going to Disney World and you start getting “Are we there yet?” before you get to the end of the block.

Last year, I won from a raffle a book called “Bless Me Father For I Have Kids.” It’s a funny book about raising a Catholic family, and the book’s dedication read: “To the children, who are frequently called expensive. To us you are priceless.”